In Fata v Minister of the Environment the ERT considered it a novel and unproven theory when the 240 appeal, represented by Mr. Raivo Ukkivi, argued that the additional mortality caused by IWT, especially to bats that might be somewhat resistant to White Nose Syndrome, might well constitute serious and irreversible harm to some bat species.

The Long eared bat population has been reduced by 98%. When populations are that severely impacted ones wonders whether they can ever recover and only the ERT could fail to understand that any additional mortality was serious and probably irreversible.

To those Americans who are victims of a morally moribund Media and Soros funded propaganda, the US Presidential election has been traumatic or profitable depending on motivation… but the Inauguration of Donald Trump went on in spite of some street violence instigated by DisruptJ20 mercenaries.

Democrats have a long tradition of rejecting election results so there is nothing new there.

Now the question of whether POTUS Donald J Trump will follow through on his campaign rhetoric seems to have been promptly answered in the affirmative. Upon his swearing-in the transition team immediately erased the Obama administration’s website and removed all Climate Change (CAGW) nonsense.

Energy is an essential part of American life and a staple of the world economy. The Trump Administration is committed to energy policies that lower costs for hardworking Americans and maximize the use of American resources, freeing us from dependence on foreign oil.

For too long, we’ve been held back by burdensome regulations on our energy industry. President Trump is committed to eliminating harmful and unnecessary policies such as the Climate Action Plan and the Waters of the U.S. rule. Lifting these restrictions will greatly help American workers, increasing wages by more than $30 billion over the next 7 years.

Sound energy policy begins with the recognition that we have vast untapped domestic energy reserves right here in America. The Trump Administration will embrace the shale oil and gas revolution to bring jobs and prosperity to millions of Americans. We must take advantage of the estimated $50 trillion in untapped shale, oil, and natural gas reserves, especially those on federal lands that the American people own. We will use the revenues from energy production to rebuild our roads, schools, bridges and public infrastructure. Less expensive energy will be a big boost to American agriculture, as well.

The Trump Administration is also committed to clean coal technology, and to reviving America’s coal industry, which has been hurting for too long.

In addition to being good for our economy, boosting domestic energy production is in America’s national security interest. President Trump is committed to achieving energy independence from the OPEC cartel and any nations hostile to our interests. At the same time, we will work with our Gulf allies to develop a positive energy relationship as part of our anti-terrorism strategy.

Lastly, our need for energy must go hand-in-hand with responsible stewardship of the environment. Protecting clean air and clean water, conserving our natural habitats, and preserving our natural reserves and resources will remain a high priority. President Trump will refocus the EPA on its essential mission of protecting our air and water.

A brighter future depends on energy policies that stimulate our economy, ensure our security, and protect our health. Under the Trump Administration’s energy policies, that future can become a reality.

Hopefully reference to “clean coal” and protecting air and water will suffice to reassure rational people that the environment will not be trashed…irrational people are going to be alarmist no matter what.

Meanwhile, in Canada, our puerile Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who supported Hillary Clinton and appointed Trump-hater and protestor Chrystia Freeland as Foreign Minister, has outdone himself in hypocrisy with a post-inauguration statement:

Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada on the Inauguration of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America

January 20, 2017

The Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, today issued the following statement on the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as President of the United States of America:

“On behalf of the Government of Canada, I would like to extend my congratulations to Donald J. Trump on his inauguration as 45th President of the United States of America.

“Canada and the United States have built one of the closest relationships between any two countries in the world. This enduring partnership is essential to our shared prosperity and security.

“Together, we benefit from robust trade and investment ties, and integrated economies, that support millions of Canadian and American jobs. We both want to build economies where the middle class, and those working hard to join it, have a fair shot at success. (!!!! emphasis added)

“Canada and the United States have unparalleled cooperation on matters of national security, and have always worked side by side to protect our citizens and ensure our shared border is secure.

“We look forward to working with President Trump, the U.S. Administration, the 115th Congress, and officials at the state and local levels to restore prosperity to the middle class on both sides of the border, and to create a safer and more peaceful world.”

PMO Media Relations:
613-957-5555

Canada’s desperate economic plight is destined to worsen if we do not stop shooting ourselves in the foot. Carbon/CO2 taxing in any form is, at best, a socialist wealth redistribution scheme and at worst transnational banksters’ financial terrorism.

Our nation is being parasitized by the same transnational cabal under Gerald Butts which maimed Ontario with the “Green”Energy Act. The erstwhile opposition, the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, is now under leadership of a “Carbon” taxing Climate Change alarmist. We can’t simply hope for some knock-on effect of saner policies in the USA given an observed tendency to suicidal doubling-down responses by the globalists.

“Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never—in nothing, great or small, large or petty—never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.” -W. Churchill

The new year should be owned by those possessed of “convictions of honour and good sense”; we number many of those in the pantheon of wind warriors. This Northern Ontario educator, friend, ally, and snowbird/hydro refugee presents a fine example for setting the record straight with persistent, principled, protest in the following letter, as she explains:

FYI, there’s been a bunch of “pro-renewables” letters to the editor here in Naples FL following a good editorial by this gentleman that was bang on showing what a hoax they are. He’s now being accused of working for the Oil and Gas companies. To be seen if my letter gets printed and if I get some reaction. …Can’t let it go, lol Happy New Year, ib

I’d like to congratulate James K Rogers for debunking the myths perpetuated by the Solar Industry.

One only has to look North to the province of Ontario to see the damage caused by both solar and wind renewable energies. In 2009, without a cost-benefit analysis, Ontario’s politicians enacted the Green Energy Act and began handing out lucrative 20 year wind and solar contracts (aka “subsidies” usually to good Liberal friends/supporters). Ontario now has the highest cost for electricity anywhere in North America (rate increases of between 71% and 149% in past 10 years) which hurts the poorest the hardest.

Many now have to decide whether to heat or to eat and over 60,000 have been cut off electricity for their inability to pay their bills just this past year alone.

Food banks have blamed their increased numbers on this mismanagement all in the name of green energy. Renewables (aka “Unreliables” due to their intermittency with no ability to store the energy for use when needed) do not lower Green House Gas emissions or fight “climate change”. The Ontario Professional Engineering Society concluded that they in fact do the exact opposite; they increase GHG because a constant backup power source (usually natural gas) is needed for when the sun doesn’t shine or wind doesn’t blow.

Please do your homework and don’t follow this foolish and costly path as seen in Ontario. It has been a complete disaster. Bill Gates has a few excellent articles whereby he concludes that we need to invest in research and development to come up with truly useful, reliable and affordable alternatives rather than pursue these current wind and solar “Unreliables”.

I. Bond
Naples, FL

With the same New Year’s optimism Friends of Science hosted a guest post by the indefatigable Dr. Tim Ball in which he points out:

“What is not needed are bureaucrats creating regulations and enforcement without scientific evidence for a political agenda.”

This is of course the circumstance which ensured rural residents of Ontario would become collateral damage of the GEA.

Of his tenacious stand on convictions of honour and good sense Dr. Ball says:

Over the last 40 years, I saw events come and go that I thought would expose the greatest deception in history: The claim that human CO2 is causing catastrophic global warming, known as anthropogenic global warming (AGW). I kept thinking and hoping that something or someone would appear to expose the entire thing. It needed an event or person who could go to the heart of the problem that was established and firmly protected within the realm of government.

The great personal toll is covered in an interview with the notorious climate sceptic journalist James Delingpole, the author of “Watermelons” in which he too made a valiant effort to expose the corruption of climate science for political ends.

Delingpole exposes the left-wing/socialist bias that underpins the environmentalist movement – hence the title: watermelons are green on the outside, red on the inside. He also exposes the power, resources and tactics (including censorship and character assassination) of parts of the green movement, which belie its squeaky-clean image. And this, for me was the most telling part of the book. Even if one accepts man-made climate change as plausible, the remedies called for by the green lobby are socialistic, utopian, and of dubious utility.

We, stalwart few, went; we saw the typical Long Term Energy Plan (LTEP) bamboozlers poster board circuit; we anti-delphied this particularly odious form of “public consultation” with practiced ease.

As was the case at the LTEP 2013 they merely feign listening, but now they are also trying to pretend the big expensive green energy elephant, though “suspended”, is not still in the room. They also try to ignore the fact the awakening elephant to the south of us is about to stomp all over the climate change hoax and just won’t be taxing carbon…what a circus!

One Wind Warrior was amused to determine the near perfect ignorance of the assembled climate-tackling energy contortionists on the major greenhouse gas… which is water vapour, not the unjustly maligned CO2 and especially not Carbon which is, after all, a solid. IESO high wire guy was hung out to dry with his convictions. Complimented on his forthright use of the term “global warming”, instead of the sneaky hiatus-hiding “climate change”, he was nonetheless schooled on the role of CO2 in maintaining life on this planet, the dearth of “climate scientists” per se pre 2013 and, as astronaut Jack Schmidtt concisely put it, “‘consensus’ merely represents the absence of definitive science,”

The Wal Mart style greeter, an Assistant to a Deputy Minister, was treated to a lengthy and detailed “we told you so” by another veteran of many battles against windbaggers and purveyors of snake oil climate remedies.

Such a tragic oration could actually start way back prior to Ontario’s Green Energy Act because there were sound public objections to early wind developments, such as Wolfe Island and Prince Windfarm, but there was notably a well researched and referenced warning formally issued directly to the Liberal Government “Standing Committee on General Government” during Green Energy/Green Economy act hearings delivered by Dr. Michael Trebilcock in april of 2009

Innumerable letters and phone calls to politicians, petitions to the Legislative Assembly, submissions to the Environmental Bill of Rights Registry, articles about protests at Queens Park, Municipal resolutions against Provincial usurpation of energy development decision-making, Environmental Review Tribunal appeals of renewable energy approvals and subsequent higher court cases; rural Ontario’s resistance to the tyranny of “green” energy is on the public record for all to see.

Opposing voices include expert groups such as the Ontario Society of Professional Engineers described by Kennedy Maise in Ontario Power Generation: ‘A Clash of Politics and Power Planning’ as “one of the most scathing critics of the Province’s electricity policy”, they are still critical even as the Government acknowledges a “mistake” yet ignores the sane solutions.

“Structurally, we’re not even close” to having a regime in place to return policy to some form of rational governance, said Jan Carr, former head of the Ontario Power Authority.

Carr said cancelling new wind projects shows the government is “finally waking up to Ontario’s electricity carnage.”

But it won’t be enough.

“Price increases are baked in for years to come due to the long-term contracts already in place, to say nothing of the implicit promise of returns based on global norms to the public pension funds who bought into Hydro One (the transmission company now being privatized to raise cash for the government).”

Ontario’s Society of Professional Engineers has issued more than half a dozen critical reports on the Liberals’ tendency to let green talk and politics override sound policy. Instead of following the expert advice of engineers and people who understand the intricacies of electricity production and distribution, the Government took to issuing directives right out the Premier’s office.

“Because they know how to turn a light bulb on and off, they’ll issue policy statements on the most complex engineering system on the planet,” said Paul Acchione, a former head of the engineers’ society.

This brings us back to public “insultations” as we know them, for the Government does indeed mock the general public even to the extent of also using our money to set up more third party intervenors for the wind industry, ENGOS and NDP favourite community power. Note the invitation to an LTEP submission party at the bottom of the page on yet another group’s website

As if that is not abuse enough they lumber us with an Environmental Commissioner for Ontario who is a long time climate alarmist and advocate for windpower. For years Diane Saxe blogged doggedly from a pro wind perspective regardless of debunked CO2 claims for wind and serious wildlife mortality.

Such targeted green activism may explain to some extent the bizarre results of a Forum Research poll which claims great support for “alternative energy” at a time when other pollsters – see Nanos graphic above – are seeing preoccupation with the hydro rate “heat or eat” crisis acknowledged by the Premier as a “mistake”.

Incensed by the press release from Forum Research, one of our Southern Ontario allies fired off this rejection of the outlier poll.

Good afternoon Mr. Bozinoff,

Now that you’ve done your poll and got the answer that your customer(s) (wind companies?, Ontario government?) wanted and paid for, let me share the results of my poll, for which I charged no fee and used no weasel words.

My question:

Do you think that industrial wind turbines, having been proven to produce unreliable, out of sync, unneeded, expensive power at a huge cost to the environment, scenic landscapes, tourism, human health, property values (MPAC study? Really? ha ha) and creating more emissions by increased burning of fossil fuels (gas) for backup, are a good idea?

Participants #1:

Millennials, living in Daddy’s basement, never been outside of an urban area, only friends are condo-dwelling latte-suckers who have never seen a wind “farm” but when polled are “experts” on rural affairs.

Answers:

Affirmative 99%
“Like, absolutely yes, it’s sooo cool to be an (armchair) environmentalist and outdoor enthusiast, you know, to “save the planet,” though I’m still afraid of getting lost on hikes in the High Park wilderness, and stuff.”

Negative 1%
“I took the time to do my research on wind turbines and the Green Energy Act and made an informed decision.”

Participants #2:

Rural citizens, generational locals or those who spent their life savings to retire to the peaceful countryside.

Answers:

Negative 99%
“Now I have to live as collateral damage next to an industrial zone full of useless (see question above) wind turbines so that uninformed urban “elites” can feel all “green” and gooey about themselves.”

Affirmative 1%
“I get paid a huge amount of $$$ from the wind companies (subsidized by the taxpayers!) and I’m doin’ it for my children and grandchildren and their children and their children’s children, and screw my neighbours who are just plain jealous of my newfound station in life. Besides, now that I’m well-healed, I can move away from this community of whiners to live in Florida, where they don’t allow wind turbines.”

I have to admit, Mr. Bozinoff, I’m a bit apprehensive about telling people I’m in the polling business, ‘cause as you should know by now, polling companies’ track records of late have been really spotty, to say the least. I’m sure I don’t have to elaborate.

Full disclosure: I live in a condo in Toronto and own a country home in Eastern Ontario. I don’t phone people to get predetermined answers, I ask them face to face for their opinions.

Regards,

This was the response

Thanks for the comments. Just so you are aware, no one sponsors our polls.

Regards,

Lorne Bozinoff, Ph.D.| President

After reading the poll we too had serious misgivings and wrote to point out some oddities, hoping for clarification… you can read the whole thread below
Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 2:20 PM

Dear Doctor Bozinoff,

Your recent media release http://poll.forumresearch.com/post/2638/voters-favour-wind-farms-offshore-and-on-land startled me with several statistics which seem at odds with my personal experience involving canvassing, both rural and urban, several petitions protesting industrial wind developments and attendance at various LTEP consultations. Certainly the negativity toward “green” energy increases greatly as people become aware of the connection between unreliables such as wind and solar and rising hydro costs which affect both personal and business economics as repeatedly warned by 2 Ontario Auditors General.

The realization that the unreliables can’t replace conventional demand generation tends to curb enthusiasm in all but those profiting from the marketing deception promoted by the prejudicial use of the term “alternative energy”. As your findings highlight, the young, who have most recently been victims of school indoctrination in the cult of “sustainability” and the poor, who have statistically less access to classical education which may teach Deductive Reasoning, Science, Math and Logic, appear to be the most gullible of the respondents.

Considering the survey was done post USA election of an economic realist, the responses seem weak in political awareness as well. Whether one has faith in Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming or not the economic suicide of “green”energy is completely insane next to the awakening behemoth to the South and Canada’s miniscule CO2 contribution. True the survey is merely a snapshot in time however it seems to lack questions which might identify the historical moment.

As a conservative I must say that the result of your question re support for public investment in “alternative energy” is just astonishing…46% approve! Conservative principles do not condone public money being used to make winners out of losers…Warren Buffett is famously quoted as saying,”The only reason to build wind turbines is the subsidies”. Conservatives in the economic ruin of Ontario are even less likely to stray from principle since we have seen few but Liberal donors benefiting from the outrageously generous 20 year contracts for intermittent, unreliable and highly variable grid-destabilizing generation.

I did note that there are some age groups which seem to recognize a complex issue and acknowledge their limited knowledge on the subject however this is not entirely clear throughout. Perhaps the Premier gadding about consulting Middle School classes and funding community group activism on energy issues gives rise to the idea that anyone can be an expert. Perhaps as a public service you could include qualifying questions re depth of knowledge in your next survey.

Could you do an entire survey, in the public interest, on sources of information which form the basis for public opinion? It would be interesting to know if people even understand the necessity and how to winnow for factual and complete information on topical issues.

As citizens we have a right to vote but that comes with a duty to make an informed vote…you could do more to help people become better participants in a Democracy rather than a Mobocracy.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

On 2016-11-29, at 8:06 PM, Lorne Bozinoff wrote:

I’ve passed your comments on to our polling group.

Regards,

LORNE BOZINOFF, Ph.D.| PRESIDENT

Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 8:11 PM

Thanks, and what should be expected from this?

On 2016-11-29, at 8:11 PM, Lorne Bozinoff wrote:

They will consider your comments when drafting future questions concerning this topic.

Regards,

LORNE BOZINOFF, Ph.D.| PRESIDENT

On Nov 29, 2016, at 8:28 PM,

What is the composition and training of the polling group to which you refer?

Do you have different groups for different projects/subject areas?

Thank you.

On 2016-11-29, at 8:44 PM, Lorne Bozinoff wrote:

Some team members have been doing this for 30 years.

Regards,

Lorne Bozinoff

Sent: Tuesday, November 29, 2016 9:02 PM

So should I understand that to mean you have one experienced group/team for all subject areas who were trained on the job?

On 2016-11-30, at 5:51 AM, Lorne Bozinoff wrote:

No, I didn’t say that at all. Anyways, if you disagree with our poll results, I’d like to see your polling results. Thanks.

Regards,

Sent: November 30, 2016 10:57:07 AM EST

No, you did not but people are inclined to draw their own conclusions when left with unanswered questions or vague and dismissive retorts.

I thank you for your time however I can’t play you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. As I pointed out to you in the first paragraph of my first email, my experience is limited to canvassing with multiple petitions on the subject of wind development and observations at the many energy-related consultations in which I have participated.

Though I did keep a tally (pages 11 to 17) of my success rate with a Federal petition at a scenic lookout, this was not a “poll” as such and people were presented with a map and explanation of the Province’s intentions for wind development of the surrounding wilderness areas. I merely demonstrated what one windpower guru admitted in an industry talk, (I am probably paraphrasing) the more people know about wind energy the less they like it.

Regards

Energy consultant and author Robert Bryce quoted the Wind Guru at length:

Justin Rolfe-Reddingcommunications strategist during a March 23 webinar sponsored by the American Council on Renewable Energy called “Speaking Out on Renewable Energy: Communications Strategies for the Renewable Energy Industry.”

During the webinar, Justin Rolfe-Redding, a doctoral student from the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, discussed ways for wind-energy proponents to get their message out to the public. Rolfe-Redding said that polling data showed that “after reading arguments for and against wind, wind lost support.” He went on to say that concerns about wind energy’s cost and its effect on property values “crowded out climate change” among those surveyed.

The most astounding thing to come out of Rolfe-Redding’s mouth — and yes, I heard him say it myself — was this: “The things people are educated about are a real deficit for us.” After the briefings on the pros and cons of wind, said Rolfe-Redding, “enthusiasm decreased for wind. That’s a troubling finding.” The solution to these problems, said Rolfe-Redding, was to “weaken counterarguments” against wind as much as possible. He suggested using “inoculation theory” by telling people that “wind is a clean source, it provides jobs” and adding that “it’s an investment in the future.” He also said that proponents should weaken objections by “saying prices are coming down every day.”

Apparently proponents are still saying that and, based on the Ontario experience, are out and out liars.

Name-calling was used to dismiss rural turbine resistance, while urban gas plant protestors cost the public 1.1B for relocations.

Legitimate requests for assistance from MPPs were demeaningly answered with form-letters from both Liberal and NDP representatives.

Green Energy was launched without any meaningful business plan, but with the claim that green energy was needed to eliminate coal-fired electricity – a demonstrably false pretext – while government dispossessed rural residents of fundamental democratic rights…

What the list fails to iterate is the inherent corruption and totalitarian over-reach evident from the outset.

Back when the Green Energy and Economy Act (GEA) was first introduced Tom Adams warned “This will destroy the foundations of effective public utility regulation”

He pointed out:

It also, grants unusually extreme search-and-seizure powers to state inspectors searching for illegal appliances and other breaches of the law.

Supposedly that threat to privacy and property was quashed, yet there were hints of that draconian provision in the intimidating ‘smart’ meter installation programme.

Adams lamented:

Ontario was at one time an internationally recognized leader in the theory and practice of public utility regulation. The Ontario Energy Board (OEB) has been led by, and has also hosted, many of the top experts in the related fields of law, economics, accounting and public administration.

The foundation for Ontario’s historic success in public utility regulation lies in the simple, logical structure of the system. Historically, the mandating legislation of the Ontario Energy Board and the history of supporting precedents and decisions were based on the principle that customers will pay no more than necessary to ensure good quality utility service over the long term. Investors recover their costs, including a reasonable rate of return on their investments, but only prudently incurred costs can be recovered.

Imprudent costs are borne by shareholders. Governments of the day could influence the process by controlling appointments to the OEB, but otherwise the OEB enjoyed substantial independence.

In place of these sound principles, the new legislation allows extensive political interference in utility regulation and requires the regulator to approve excessive rates for consumers if the underlying costs are associated with politically preferred projects.

Turning away from the regulatory model that served Ontario so successfully and replacing it with these conflicted requirements is being done to ensure that the conservation and renewable energy options the Minister seeks to promote can avoid a regulatory test of prudence.

This is the point at which alarms should have echoed in every community and home in the Province. Ontario Minister of Energy George Smitherman was quoted as saying, “the GEA will build on municipal leadership, uploading responsibilities to Queen’s Park.”

The objective of the GEA, which turns Ontario’s electricity market from a low-cost system to a whatever-it-costs regime, is allegedly to reduce the province’s carbon footprint. But no carbon-reduction targets have been set or will ever be set, no doubt because it is highly unlikely any significant reductions will occur.

It is a myth that solar and wind power have no carbon emissions, as news reports often say.

The main policy vehicle for renewable power is a massive subsidy regime. The subsidies will take the form of feed-in tariffs, following Europe’s lead. The main impact of such policies in Europe has been soaring prices for electricity and energy, and a carbon footprint that’s as big as ever. It just costs twice as much, with electricity prices that are double and triple North American rates.

Corcoran did a good job following-the-money finding:

The major backers of green power tax-and-grab regimes are hundreds of businesses that stand to collect billions in subsidies and tax benefits from solar, wind and other alternative
energy forms.

There’s the Ontario Green Energy Act Alliance, the major lobbying effort behind the new green police state. It self-describes its origins:

“The Ontario Sustainable Energy Association (OSEA), together with other leading trade associations, environmental groups, First Nations, developers, manufacturers, farmers and landowners, is initiating a campaign to create the Ontario Green Energy Act.”

Among the backers of the alliance is the Pembina Institute. The institute’s former climate campaigner, Robert Hornung, is now head of the Canadian Wind Energy Association, which in turn gives money to Pembina. Pembina writes glowing reports on renewables.

Pembina also receives money from the Ontario Power Authority, the Ontario Energy Board and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.
Another alliance backer is Environmental Defence, the radical Ottawa-based activist group headed by Rick Smith. Last year, Environmental Defence received $500,000 in funding from the government of Ontario. It would appear that one source of that money was the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, which is largely funded by Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government. Rick Smith recently resigned from the Greenbelt Foundation, where he was a director.

Another Green Act Alliance backer is the Ontario Clean Air Alliance. It gets money from local community groups, such as the York Region Environmental Alliance, which is largely funded by the agenda-driven Ontario Trillium Foundation, which spends Ontario lottery cash. The Clean Air Alliance also counts the Energy Action Council of Toronto as a member. Its major backers include the Ontario Energy Ministry and the Ontario lottery operation.

In summary, the Ontario government pays millions of dollars to environmental activists and corporate interests to lobby the Ontario government and agitate for the Green Energy Act, which act serves the interests of the agitators.

And just in case the political connections might be lost, the Ontario Clean Energy Act Alliance’s Web site provides a handy link to the Ontario Liberal Party — not the Ontario government, but the Liberal Party — web site that highlights George Smitherman and Dalton McGuinty. The Web link says:

“Paid for by the Toronto Centre Provincial Liberal Association.”

Astonishingly Ontario Liberals were given an extended mandate for their flagrant kleptocracy by the greedy and the low-information voters.

Tom Adams’ warning from 2009 is yet more relevant today: Even if regulatory integrity and competition are someday restored, it will take at least a generation for consumers to pay down the cost of the imprudent decisions the Province of Ontario makes.

Truly the sins of the Liberals shall be visited on the next generations

Just in: This an important opportunity to help expose the true costs of “green”energy: a wind warrior needs money to fund an FOI to pry truth out of the wind developers.

Getting information through FOI is not a cheap or easy process, as LSARC discovered. It took over one year and an appeal to the Privacy Commissioner of Ontario to pry information out of the Ministry of Natural Resources And Forests (MNRF). The MNRF’s obstructionism was so blatant that the Privacy Commissioner cited our case during a conference in Sault Ste Marie.

Learn more about this attempt to find the truth about bird and bat deaths by going here

Please consider donating to their cause, the response has been wonderful so far, but they still need your help…

Donald Trump, who has a genius for stating the obvious, pronounced “Wind turbines are ugly, noisy and dangerous. Bad for tourism” as he warned Scotland not to blight their landscapes.

It tends to irk his enemies that he is so often right, so when he claimed ” I am a world class expert in tourism.” he was mocked rather than respected, yet in this too he is correct.

In the comments section, among ad hominem attacks and churlish remarks, there was this:

Wow, I hate to agree with him but I think he’s right. 100%.
I grew up in rural Missouri, and although there were tons of reasons to hate it, it WAS beautiful. Now those fucking turbines are everywhere, looking like alien invaders, and emitting a menacing hum.
I truly loathe them, and every time I go home I have fantasies of blowing them up. It’s true enough that rural America struggles for all sorts of reasons, but I think those damn turbines strip away the feeling that you can “get away from it all” anywhere.
I hate them. I hate them. I hate them.
—Anonymous

And there are a lot, a lot, a lot, of people just like this individual, with more every day that the blight spreads into places which should have remained inviolate for their restorative qualities. The whole Parks system is tacit acknowledgement of the importance of such landscapes to our well-being.

Even places which had official designation as areas of significant natural heritage or scientific interest have been encroached upon, wilderness allure sullied, tranquility shattered and it has been going on for a long time despite negative response to this “green” energy development in nations which were early victims of the wind scam.

“Don’t go down the same route as Germany or you could bitterly regret the devastating effects on the English countryside and its communities.”

In September 1998, more than 100 German academics and writers signed the Darmstadt Manifesto against the cultural, environmental and economic folly of wind development. Yet this is the model Ontario chose to follow… after designing a renewable energy approvals process which carefully excluded tourism and economic concerns from the appeals process.

Even though medical studies have recognized the economic determinants of health and there are dire financial consequences for an area which destroys its tourism assets, the Environmental Review Tribunal refused to connect the dots even on appeal in an area such as Algoma where tourism is the second largest employer. In 2011 tourism in Northern Ontario generated $1.414 billion in revenues of which tourism in Algoma accounted for $204 million, or 15% of the total. In 2011 tourism in Algoma directly employed 2,870 residents and contributed $113.5 million in wages and salaries to the region.

While wind itself is unreliable the wind industry is consistent in its attempts and tactics to quash the negative tourism response. While LSARC plumbed the depths of wind iniquity on this issue and wrote a rebuttal of the wind commissioned tourism report for Algoma in year 2013, here we are in 2016 and they are still making exculpatory claims.

Like Donald Trump who has fought plans for an offshore wind farm close to his golf resort in Aberdeenshire, our conservation allies in the UK, the John Muir Trust (JMT), are still battling the invasion of giant turbines across Scotland’s iconic landscapes. Edinburgh-based Biggar Economics concludes no adverse effect while JMT had understandable doubts.

“We have seen Biggar Economics’s reports and its evidence at inquiries on the issue of whether tourism might be affected by wind farms,” said Helen McDade, from the JMT. “We had significant doubts about the way in which this report and its conclusions were done so we commissioned independent analysis.”

We are with them, and the Donald, on this having had our own experiences with tourists’ reactions to the industrial wind turbine blight in scenic and wilderness areas, witness guest post by Gord Benner

Powerful Arguments

Two recent articles highlight the fact that if you want to depopulate rural areas, de-industrialize urban ones and generally crash the economy per UN Agenda 21 also known by the risible misnomer “Sustainable Development“… you have a proven tool in “green” energy.The first sad piece is by our ally and numbers hero Dr. Ross McKitrick to whom we are enormously grateful for his help and encouragement (see review of the Greenwich Wind Farm economic analysis.Here, he points out economic follies, as he has done since the inception of Ontario’s insane greed energy scheme:

“Despite the hype, all this tinkering produced no special environmental benefits. The province said it needed to close its coal-fired power plants to reduce air pollution. But prior to 2005, these plants were responsible for less than two per cent of annual fine particulate emissions in Ontario, about the same as meat packing plants, and far less than construction or agriculture. Moreover, engineering studies showed that improvements in air quality equivalent to shutting the plants down could be obtained by simply completing the pollution control retrofit then underway, and at a fraction of the cost. Greenhouse gas emissions could have been netted to zero by purchasing carbon credits on the open market, again at a fraction of the cost. The environmental benefits exist only in provincial propaganda.”

As someone with a background in Environmental Economics Dr McKitrick is particularly sensitive to the values or “externalities” so loved by activists so he continues:

And on the subject of environmental protection, mention must be made of the ruin of so many scenic vistas in the province, especially long stretches of the Great Lakes shores, the once-pristine recreational areas of the central highlands, and the formerly pastoral landscapes of the southwestern farmlands; and we have not even mentioned yet the well-documented ordeal for people living with the noise and disturbance of wind turbines in their backyards. We will look in vain for benefits in Ontario even remotely commensurate to the damage that has been done.

This is a tragedy all the worse for its deliberateness and in spite of the fact that future generations are unlikely to know what treasures were lost.

The province likes to defend its disastrous electricity policy by saying it did it for the children. These are the same children who are now watching their parents struggle with unaffordable utility bills. And who in a few years will enter the workforce and discover how hard it has become to get full time jobs amid a shrinking industrial job market.

The second item elaborates on the punishing rural rates which can only increase given the Ontario government’s ideological bent.

As those of us fighting the imposition of unreliable generation remote from demand know, the Ontario Energy Board has seriously conflicting objectives (below) which render it yet another bureaucratic waste of time and money.

• To protect the interests of consumers with respect to prices and the adequacy, reliability and quality of electricity service.
• To promote economic efficiency and cost effectiveness in the generation, transmission, distribution, sale and demand management of electricity and to facilitate the maintenance of a financially viable electricity industry.
• To promote electricity conservation and demand management in a manner consistent with the policies of the Government of Ontario, including having regard to the consumer’s economic circumstances.
• To facilitate the implementation of a smart grid in Ontario.
• To promote the use and generation of electricity from renewable energy sources in a manner consistent with the policies of the Government of Ontario, including the timely expansion or reinforcement of transmission systems and distribution systems to accommodate the connection of renewable energy generation facilities.